Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Puritan Thought

“Do you mortify? Do you make it your daily work? Be always at it whilst you live; cease not a day from this work; be killing sin or it will be killing you”

John Owen -

7 comments:

Nohm said...

How does one "kill sin"?

Honest question.

Word ver: "wowness" :-)

Steve Martin said...

As St. Paul admonishes us, I consider myself dead to sin.

Sure I still sin ( we all do and will continue to do so as long as we are still breathing),

But I don't live in it. And God's Word of Law is used to bring me back to repentance...again and again and again.

Dorci said...

All sin was put on Jesus and it was killed with Him on the cross.

At the point that I recognize my sinfulness and ask God for forgiveness for it (repentance), I receive that forgiveness because my sin was killed 2000 years ago.

Now, even though my sin was paid for, I want to live in honor of my Lord Jesus Christ by not continuing to freely sin. So I turn away from the temptation to sin rather than indulging in it, thereby "killing" it. I take up my figurative cross daily, dying to my own temptation to sin.

Dawg said...

Thanks Steve and Dorci -

The above comments could not happen without the Holy Spirit working in the believers life.

Romans 8:13 says, "For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live."

We (Christians) can only overcome the flesh through the Holy Spirit. Just as the unbeliever cannot overcome his flesh through his own means, a believer has a helper; the Holy Spirit.

Just as Steve said, God's Word, the Law, is used by the Spirit to bring us back to repentance daily.

Our flesh has no power to keep the Law.

But, as Dorci said, sin was laid on the Christ. He took the punishment for me.

Now, as Romans 8:1 say's, "There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit."

But Paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, tells us that it is our duty as a believer to "mortify" (kill or put to death)the deeds of the flesh.

Through the work of the Holy Spirit, we don't live in the sin. We don't wallow in it. We don't wake up in the morning planning our sin.

We turn from sin. Away from the temptation as Dorci puts it.

But it only happens through the work of the Holy Spirit in us.

Dorci said...

Excellent. Always with the power of the Holy Spirit.

Nohm said...

Ok, I think I understand what you mean.

Ike said...

Putting to death the deeds of the body by the Spirit... the daily practice of killing sin in your life... is the result of being justified and the evidence that you are justified by faith alone apart from works of the law. If you are making war on your sin, and walking by the Spirit, then you know that you have been united with Christ by faith alone. And if you have been united to Christ, then his blood and righteousness provide the unshakable ground of your justification.